


Sun-Kissed Snow

by avislightwing



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Epistolary, Fluff and Angst, M/M, POV Multiple, mostly just ridiculous fluff, surprise, the most crackship to ever crackship, this was going to be a one-shot, trans!Kallias mentioned in passing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 16:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11339340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avislightwing/pseuds/avislightwing
Summary: A romance between two lordlings who just want to be free to do the things they love - including each other. Semi-epistolary.





	Sun-Kissed Snow

_My dearest Lucien,_

_How long it has been since last I saw you. My blood is as ice in my veins for lack of your love, your company. The stablehands must think me a fool – I tell the bears, the foxes, the geese, of you – and perhaps I am. A fool in love._

_Viviane teases me relentlessly, I will have you know. She tells me that it is lucky I am not in the line of direct succession to the throne of Winter. It is one thing as it is, she says, with two lordlings on the edges of the coldest Courts, but it would be another if we were both princelings – heirs! I believe, fire of my heart, that should my uncle die, she would be the one to succeed the throne, indirectly connected to the royal family as she is. When I am around her, I can feel power humming under her skin. I look forward to the day when I swear allegiance to her as High Lady._

_She caught me yesterday in the stables, telling the foxes of your beauty, your grace, how your hair catches the Autumn light through the leaves, how – I make a fool of myself even now, relating this to you. She laughed so hard it scared Caspian. He scratched my hand, and I blushed so much that I looked like I did when we stayed out all day and I got terribly sunburnt. I cannot help it. I fear you have set my heart aflame, sunbeam, and even the coldest lake of Winter cannot put it out._

_I cannot sleep for thinking of you. I am nightly haunted by the knowledge of the distance betwixt us. Do you think of me as I do of you? Will you give Caspian a scratch on the ears for his delivery, or will you shoo him back over the border? Will you read this so many times it falls apart in your hands (those hands that also haunt my dreams), or will you burn it to ash? Did you think our time spent together was a silly dalliance, or did you hope – like I do – that it could be the start of something more?_

_I confess:  even as I write this, I fear of what you might think. But I must say the words. Lucien Vanserra, son of Autumn, prince of the forest and holder of my heart, I love you, truly and deeply._

_Please send me a word of your response as soon as you can. I ache for your answer._

_Your love (I hope – Cauldron, I hope),_

_Kallias_

Kallias set down his quill and studied the letter in front of him. His heart was pounding as it never had. But he had to do it.

Carefully, he folded the letter, picked Caspian up, and tucked it into the fox’s vest. Then he drew off the silver ring he wore on his left hand, kissed it, and placed it in the other pocket of the vest.

“You know what to do,” Kallias whispered to Caspian. “Find him. Find Lucien.” He set the little fox down, and it trotted out of the room.

Kallias watched him until he disappeared down the corridor, then let out a shaky sigh. He couldn’t go back on it now.

They’d met two months before, when Kallias had visited the Autumn Court. He’d been trapped with the other Vanserra sons for the first few days. He’d nearly gone out of his mind. Each of Lucien’s brothers had looked at him like he was something to eat. And then, on the fourth day, when Kallias had taken refuge in a suite of rooms deep in the Autumn Court’s massive manor (it had quickly become his favorite place in the Court – softer, somehow, than the rest, lined with sheltering maple trees and hung with tapestries)…

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was here.”

Kallias would never forget the first time he saw the other male:  He was standing in his doorway, long hair down and messy with sleep, and he was wearing loose clothes. He had obviously just woken up.

“I – I didn’t either,” Kallias had stammered. “I’m Kallias Kosetsu.”

“Lucien,” the male had said. “Vanserra,” he added, grudgingly.

“Oh.” Then, “ _Oh._ These must be your rooms.”

Lucien had smiled, and it was like the sun rising. Kallias had felt his heart stumble in his chest. “Yes, but I don’t spend much time in them. What’s a Winter Fae doing in the Autumn Court?”

“Visiting,” Kallias had said weakly.

Lucien had given a sharp laugh. “You have friends here?”

“No – quite the contrary. I was hoping I’d make some.” Kallias had sighed in misery. There was not one person he had met that he could trust even to pronoun him correctly. He’d never been in a place like that, and he was tired.

“You’ve met my brothers, then.” It hadn’t been a question. “You look like you could use a touch of sun. Would you like to come with me to the woods today?”

Kallias had. He’d spent that day, and the next, with Lucien. The evening of the fifth day, Kallias had kissed Lucien, a quick, fluttering thing, and Lucien had pulled him closer and kissed him more thoroughly.

The evening of the eleventh, Lucien had taken him to his campsite – the stone and earth of the cave made soft by Lucien’s touches of fabric and pottery and wood and a fire banked for the night – and they’d made love, and then slept together under the stars.

Kallias had left for the Winter Court again on his fourteenth day.

“Write to me.” He’d whispered the plea in Lucien’s ear. Since then, they’d been exchanging letters on a regular basis, but it wasn’t enough. Kallias missed Lucien like he’d left a piece of his heart in the Autumn Court, and loved him with an unrelenting ache, like the ache that builds behind his eyes if he looks out over the frozen landscape for too long.

Thus, the letter he just sent.

“Did you do it?”

Kallias turned to see Viviane in the doorway to his room, leaning against the wall. “Do what?”

“Declare your love to the Autumn prince.”

Kallias reddened almost as much as he had when she had caught him spouting poetry to Caspian. “I – no – that is – how –?”

Viviane smiled, eyes permanently crinkled at the corners from staring at snow all day. “You’ve been anxious for hours, and I just saw Caspian heading out the door. Simple.” She walked in and sat on his bed. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“What if he rejects me, Viv?” Kallias said, voice low, as he fiddled with the silver buttons of his tunic. “What if he thinks me a fool for thinking there was anything between us? For all I know, he plays with the heart of a different lordling every month of the year.”

“Do you truly believe that?” Viviane asked softly.

“…No.”

“Trust him, Kall,” she said.

He looked up at her, eyes open and vulnerable as a child’s. “I’ll try.”

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to do shorter chapters in the hope that I'll get it updated more often...
> 
> I'm also on tumblr as birdiethebibliophile!


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